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The Canberra Cop Killer: The Murder of Colin Winchester

Born on 18 October 1933 and raised in a mining town a little way south of Canberra, Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester holds the tragic and unfortunate distinction of being the most senior police officer to be killed in the line of duty in this country.

Sadly, it would take almost six years and one of the most intensive forensic investigations Australia has seen to bring the murderer to justice.

Two months after the assassination, the former Director of National Operations for the Australian Federal Police, Alan Mills, would go on record to say that ‘Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester’s death is the end of the age of innocence for Australia’.

Colin met his violent demise outside the modest home in the Canberra suburb of Deakin he had bought in 1966, at around a quarter past nine on the balmy night of 10 January 1989. He died as a result of two bullets fired into his head at close range as he parked his car in the driveway he shared with his family’s next-door neighbour.

The married father of two had joined the police force when he was 28 years old, and worked his way up the ranks from his initial role as a general duties constable. Popular and renowned for his sense of humour, he was considered honest and reliable by all those who worked alongside him. Colin was also admired by his colleagues for the lengths he went to in order to improve his work skills, through taking many and varied courses available to officers – from detective training to accountancy to advanced management.

That diligence and hard work paid off in 1984, when Colin attained the rank of Assistant Commissioner after 23 years on the job.

Just about everybody that came into contact with Colin Winchester – from either side of the law – considered him to be what is commonly known in this country as a ‘good bloke’. Canberra solicitor Peter Crowley would later describe his good friend as being honest and compassionate in his job. A practical joker and dedicated family man, he was tough but fair, straight to the point and always ready to go an extra mile for the sake of the job. But even the most admired people in the world can find themselves on the wrong side of someone’s opinion. For Colin Winchester, that someone was David Harold Eastman, an intelligent but highly disgruntled former public servant who seemed angry with the world in general, and eventually came to channel all of his dissatisfaction towards Colin.

At one point in his life, Eastman went to private school and had a strong future to look forward to. His father was a senior diplomat, held in high esteem by his colleagues. Eastman himself was dux of his year when he finished up at Canberra Grammar. He soon found himself working for the Treasury.

Somewhere along the way, though, Eastman seemed to develop a persecution complex, believing a variety of injustices had been carried out against him. He seemed to grow angrier by the day, sure that he was being conspired against, and he would show that anger by harassing anyone he felt had slighted him or held him back in any way – including the Australian Federal Police.

His rage wasn’t isolated to law enforcement officers, though. Other public services copped Eastman’s wrath, with accusations of corruption. It was also common for Eastman to pass his opinions on to the media.

Eastman left the Treasury after being overlooked for a promotion he clearly believed he should have received. The year was 1977 and he spent the next decade trying to get hired back into the public service. Feeling victimised, he also spent that time trying to convince anyone who would listen that the Treasury was corrupt. As the years dragged on, Eastman grew even more irate. There are stories that he would make direct threats to various reporters.

It’s fair to say that Eastman was a difficult person to get along with, something that his neighbour Andrew Russo was becoming increasingly aware of. The two men became embroiled in an argument in December 1987 about where Russo had parked his car. Terse words were exchanged. The fight became so heated that Eastman and Russo ended up reporting each other to the authorities. The police sided with Russo, and Eastman found himself charged with assault. It was no surprise that he saw this as further persecution. He became convinced that the police had decided to conspire against him. He also believed that a police record would make it even harder for him to get back into the public service.

Concerned about his future, Eastman fought long and hard to have the assault charge against him quashed. The campaign saw him make repeated calls to the media. Once he got a reporter on the phone, it was hard to get him off, with the unfortunate journalist being forced to listen to an endless tirade revolving around conspiracies and persecution.

It was around this time that Colin Winchester was appointed regional chief of the Canberra police force. Eastman firmly believed that the new boss would be the man to help his cause. The men finally met in person at the police headquarters in December 1988. Colin had been asked by a number of politicians to look into the matter.

The meeting, though, wasn’t a comfortable one. Eastman insisted that he had been attacked by his neighbour, that it was unreasonable that he had been the man charged by police for the incident. Colin Winchester listened to his version of the story passively. He then told Eastman that he would have the opportunity to defend himself when the matter went to court, and that he would investigate the situation himself.

Before that could happen, however, Eastman received notice from the authorities that the case would proceed within weeks. The date he got the news was 9 January 1989. In just a few more than 24 hours, Colin Winchester would be dead.

When Colin pulled in to his driveway at around 9.15pm on 10 January, his wife Gwen Winchester was waiting inside. She heard the car idle then stop, but the sound of his keys in the door never came. She did hear a couple of faint popping noises, but passed them off as children throwing small rocks or something similarly trivial.

Gwen had no way of knowing that, just as Colin had removed the key from the ignition and opened the car’s door, he had been shot square in the back of the head. The bullet killed him on impact. A second shot above the right ear made sure the job was done.

Shortly afterwards, Gwen Winchester went outside to see what was going on. She was confronted with the sight of her loving husband still sitting in his car. With her mind racing, she was concerned he’d had a heart attack. Gwen bolted back inside to phone the emergency services hotline. After that, she went back outside. The light inside her husband’s car was still on, and it helped her to see the blood pooling on the ground. Realising that something far more sinister was going on, Gwen ran back inside to call the police.

As would be expected when such a high-ranking member of their squad is concerned, a very large number of police were on the scene in no time at all. Still, besides two empty bullet cartridges sitting in the grass next to the driver’s side door of the car where Colin Winchester had been murdered, they could locate very little evidence.

Expert forensic investigator Robert Barnes was flown up from his home in Melbourne. He got to the murder site at close to 1am. He immediately noted that, due to the lack of solid evidence at the scene, they would have to rely on trace evidence. His first priority was to seal off the area to ensure absolutely nothing was moved or altered.

He then shocked the other investigating officers by having Colin Winchester’s body taken out of the car and placed on a tarpaulin upside down so that he could examine it right there and then, rather than at a mortuary, which would have been standard operating procedure. His reason for doing this was that he believed there would be a huge loss of blood doing things the traditional way, which would have resulted in valuable trace evidence being washed away. His theory eventually helped put David Eastman into jail.

The detectives assigned to the case were the most senior and dedicated available. Their prime goals were to discover a motive for the killing and find any possible witnesses, as well as to locate the murder weapon.

One local couple told them that they had seen two cars driving away wildly on the night of the murder, and a woman who lived behind Colin and Gwen Winchester revealed that she had heard someone walking past her house around the approximate time that Colin was assassinated. She heard the sound again a few minutes later, going in the other direction. This time the footsteps were accompanied by a faint muttering. She then heard a car driving away.

Another neighbour told the police that she had seen a car parked nearby two nights earlier. It was blue and the driver had tried to hide his face as she got close. The man’s behaviour seemed somewhat weird to her so she tried to remember the number plate. She told the detectives that it was possibly YPQ 038, but when the police followed that lead they found out the car had been nowhere near the crime scene on the night in question. David Eastman’s number plate, however, was very similar – YMP 028.

Robert Barnes studied photos and sketches of the crime scene, taking special note of the position of Colin Winchester’s body and the location of the spent bullet casings. He was then able to establish that Colin had been shot in the back of the head as he started to get out of his car. The second shot came after he fell back into the automobile.

Barnes also discovered that the hollow-point bullets used were a cheap Korean brand, PMC. They had been fired from a Ruger 10/22 self-loading carbine rifle, a common weapon in this country, often used for sports shooting. Further testing on Colin Winchester’s body revealed that there were two separate types of gunshot residue – one, called chopped disc residue, was a heavily charred particle; the other was from two ammunition brands, neither of which was PMC.

There were suggestions in the media that Colin Winchester had been murdered by the Mafia, but Robert Barnes thought that those allegations were highly unlikely. A Mafia hit would have been done by a professional, and professionals wouldn’t have left the spent bullet casings at the crime scene. Barnes also found that the murder weapon had been fitted with a silencer; anybody with even a casual knowledge of guns would have known that it would have been next to useless on such a powerful rifle.

Looking for any lead possible, the detectives assigned to the case began to interview anybody involved in Colin Winchester’s recent work. Two officers visited David Eastman the day after the murder. Eastman made sure that his lawyer was there when he answered their questions. He then told the officers that he had been driving through Canberra by himself when Colin Winchester was murdered, but he couldn’t tell them specifically where he had been, apart from suggesting that he had bought some takeaway food at around 8pm and arrived back at his flat in the suburb of Reid at about 10pm. He neglected to mention something that he would later admit in court – that he had gone to a brothel in the suburb of Fyshwick sometime around 11pm. The prostitute he hired that night later testified that his visit had been during the period from 11pm until 2am, but she couldn’t pinpoint an exact time. Either way, it didn’t help Eastman establish an alibi.

Eastman’s story – or lack thereof – compelled the detectives to take a closer look into his background. It didn’t take them long to realise he was something of a loose cannon. They soon uncovered circumstantial evidence that he had accused Colin Winchester of being corrupt.

The police were back at Eastman’s flat a week later, to conduct a search of his Mazda 626 and residence. Robert Barnes noted that Eastman’s car appeared to be very tidy – except that there was a large amount of partially burnt propellant and residue from gunshots on the door handle on the driver’s side, on the steering column, and on the right-hand side of the rear-view mirror.

The locations and large number of fine particles indicated a right-handed person had shot a gun and then got into the car almost immediately afterwards. Barnes took samples to analyse, but it would take several years for the results to be determined, due to the substances being so miniscule and the limits of the technology available at the time.

Of just as much interest to Barnes was the fact that the charred chipped disc particle matched evidence found on Colin Winchester’s dead body.

All this, as well as other forensic evidence Barnes assembled that confirmed the murder weapon used was a Ruger 10/22 rifle with a silencer attached, was enough to convince the expert that whoever had driven this particular Mazda 626 had killed Colin Winchester.

The police were also able to confirm that no other person besides David Eastman had driven the vehicle since the night of the murder. The police began watching their prime suspect very closely. Eastman’s phone was tapped, as was his home. Surveillance crews followed him whenever he went out in public.

Not surprisingly, David Eastman declared to anyone that would listen that he was being harassed by the authorities. He made several calls repeating his claims to the media and various politicians.

The police, though, stayed right on his trail. They even arranged a recall of Ruger 10/22 rifles, ostensibly to exclude innocent owners as much to target David Eastman. They also started looking at gun dealers and struck pay dirt when they contacted a man by the name of Louis Klarenbeek – now deceased – from the Canberra suburb of Queanbeyan.

Klarenbeek told them he had sold a Ruger to a man a short time before Colin Winchester was killed. The only problem was that he couldn’t tell them the name of the man who bought it. He gave them a description of the purchaser, but it was of little use to them. Interestingly, though, he told them that the customer had said that he didn’t need the gun’s telescopic sight – a strange decision for a sports rifle, unless the target you’re aiming for is very near.

One thing that Klarenbeek was able to provide police with was spent cartridges from a quarry that the Ruger had been test-fired in. After comparing the markings on the shells found at the crime scene, Barnes was able to forensically prove that the weapon Klarenbeek had sold to the mystery customer was highly likely to have been the same one that was used to murder Colin Winchester. The authorities lucked into further valuable evidence when another customer of Klarenbeek’s was able to identify David Eastman as a visitor to the gun dealer’s house. A woman, too, told them that she had seen a car like the suspect’s parked near the dealer’s house.

With the case dragging on, a coronial inquest began in 1991; its aim was to establish the exact reason for the murder. It only took two weeks before David Eastman emerged as the only genuine suspect in the matter.

Still, there was no conclusive finding. All that the inquest really managed to do was remove any doubt that Colin Winchester was corrupt.

Nonetheless, David Eastman was arrested and charged with Winchester’s murder shortly afterwards, despite the majority of the evidence against him being purely circumstantial.

Anyone familiar with the case and the accused would have been expecting David Eastman to cause a major commotion when the case finally went to trial on 2 May 1995, more than five years after the murder. They were proved right virtually from day one, with the judge, Justice Kenneth Carruthers, being insulted by the defendant. Eastman also made a big production of publicly firing his lawyers a number of times throughout the trial, only to rehire them days later. Perhaps inevitably, though, there came a time in the 85-day trial when he didn’t request their services again, and he ended up representing himself.

Eastman’s behaviour in court hit a low point the day he threw a jug of water across the room when he believed things were going against him. For the most part, the Crown prosecutor, Michael Adams QC, let Eastman go on with his histrionics while he continued to present his case. He declared that the accused’s motive came down to the dislike he held for the police, and the fact that Colin Winchester had done nothing to help him.

The prosecutor presented all the evidence that his team had assembled, and put forward five hours of the thousands of conversations they had gathered on the tapes made of Eastman’s phone and the bugs at his house. One of those tapes is reported to have captured Eastman saying that he had never killed anyone before, but that it was ‘a beautiful feeling; one of the most beautiful feelings you have ever known’.

In his defence, the best David Eastman could do was say that the gunshot residue evidence found in his blue Mazda 626 may have been from guns he had bought out of fear following the argument with his neighbour, Andrew Russo.

Despite his vigorous denials, the jury had little trouble reaching a unanimous guilty verdict. David Eastman was sentenced to life in prison on 15 November 1995, for the cold-blooded murder of Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester. He has since mounted several appeals, all of which have come to nothing.

David Eastman maintains his innocence to this day. He will never be allowed parole. He is currently serving his time in the 300-capacity multi-grade Alexander Maconochie Centre in the Australian Capital Territory.